NEWTOWN, CT — In recent weeks, the U.S. Department of Education has cancelled critical grants supporting life-saving mental health programs in K-12 schools. Impacted grant programs include those created under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) – the School Based Mental Health Services Professional Demonstration Grant and the Mental Health Services Professional Demonstration Grant – which support hiring and training school-based mental health professionals. In addition, several grantees under the STOP School Violence Act’s grant program to train students, teachers, and staff to recognize the warning signs of youth violence and self-harm have had funding discontinued.
In response to these disappointing changes, Mark Barden, co-founder and CEO of the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund and father of Daniel, who was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, shared the following:
“School-based mental health grant programs – created through bipartisan legislation – simply put, save children’s lives. Considering the youth mental health crisis in our country, now is not the time to pull back from these vital, nonpartisan programs, designed and proven to protect our kids and prevent violence in our schools and communities. Rather, we should recommit ourselves to efforts to identify and address the root causes of youth violence and self-harm.
“When Sandy Hook Promise worked with bipartisan lawmakers to advance the STOP School Violence Act and the BSCA, we knew mental health grant programs would amount to life-saving investments in our children and their futures. This modest federal grant funding has had dramatic and meaningful impact in many communities, ensuring more students – especially in rural and under-resourced school districts – have access to the essential mental health care they need, while also equipping school communities to recognize the warning signs that too often precede a crisis or tragedy.”
Crystal Garrant, Sandy Hook Promise’s chief program officer and an expert in the development of student, school, and community violence prevention programmatic initiatives, further spoke to the importance and impact of the affected grant programs:
“The vast majority of U.S. school districts have limited or no access to school-based mental health professionals, even as a growing number of students report persistent feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and suicide attempts. The majority of students in need of mental health care rely on their schools for those services. Ending these grants will only serve to exacerbate students’ challenges, putting more U.S. kids and communities at risk.
“Sandy Hook Promise has been honored to partner with a number of grant recipients to implement suicide prevention and violence prevention trainings for students and staff, so that school communities can identify the signs of mental health crisis and violence before something happens. And these programs work: For example, through Sandy Hook Promise’s trainings and Say Something Anonymous Reporting System, we’ve stopped at least 18 school shootings and saved more than 1,000 young lives from suicide.”
Barden concluded, “The impact of school-based mental health programs could not be clearer, garnering significant, sustained bipartisan support. We encourage the continuation – and in fact, expansion – of essential school mental health programming, to protect our kids at school, at home, and in our communities. Our students’ lives are worth it.”
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The Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund (SHPAF) is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization committed to protecting all children from gun violence in schools, homes, and communities. The SHP Action Fund advances a holistic policy platform that promotes gun safety, youth mental health, and violence prevention education. The organization works at the state and federal level to pass nonpartisan legislation through inclusive partnerships, diverse grassroots education, and community mobilization. It is part of Sandy Hook Promise, founded and led by several family members whose loved ones were killed in the tragic mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012.
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